As I have been travelling and visiting various CIOs around the country I have been struck by the impact of mobile devices, primarily because 10 years ago I would have been laughed at by the CIOES group to suggest topics related to phones and smart computing devices. Right now I am seeing a thirst among CIOs to understand and navigate the vast confusion that mobility presents to an organization. The risks are too great to simply assign this to a tech to go research on their own. Mobility impacts corporate culture and is infiltrating from the top of the organization. A seemingly simple decision about allowing a tablet device like an iPad to access corporate resources triggers all sorts of questions.

I see fear as the underlying factor. The fear that corporate data will leak. The fear of buying products that do a little but not everything. The fear that the correct infrastructure platform needs to be chosen. Here are the choices that my CIOs are seeing: Android tablets and phones, ‘i’ products like iPhone and iPad, Symbian phones, Blackberry phones and playbook tablet, MAC laptops and Intel based laptops. Work at home PCs. Is the business giving you more people to chase down mobility security and manage non-Microsoft devices? What I have seen is that these waters can be navigated. Some of the following questions spawn the most vigorous and worthwhile debates that I have seen:

• What if you could stop caring about the end point and invest in DLP technologies to ensure your data and more importantly the correct data makes it to the endpoint?
• Are my remote users un-tethered or connected to persistent connections? What impact does this have on your decision making?
• What if you knew exactly who was entering your network?
• A strategy for Mobile Workspace Virtualization is needed. Untethered users are the bain of IT’s existence. How can you rein this in?
• What strategy for Mobile device backup is needed?
• What strategy for Firewalling outbound data is needed?
• How do you approach data at rest versus data that is moving? Enabling data at rest Data Loss Prevention is different than data in motion.
• Board packets can be accessed securely during meetings without needing to print out 5 inch thick board presentation packets.
• How can you turn iPads and tablet devices from consumption devices to devices that support creativity? What about being able to access Microsoft applications, and edit, share, and save documents on non-Microsoft operating systems?

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